Bitcoin at Risk Due to Quantum Threats by 2030

According to estimates by the research and consulting company Gartner, traditional asymmetric cryptography may become insecure by 2030 due to the development of quantum computing. This is just one of the issues the company listed at the beginning of 2026. The list of threats includes agent AI systems creating new attack surfaces and complicating traditional identity and access management, as well as regulatory instability, which makes cybersecurity an increasingly critical business risk.

2030 is not that far away, although it may seem distant. The post-quantum threat concerns not only cryptocurrencies: individual organizations and entire sectors, including banking, need to plan ahead for an effective replacement of the cryptography embedded in modern technologies.

The Bitcoin network faces its own challenges. Currently, BIP-360 – a proposal for a quantum-resistant Pay-to-Merkle-Root address type – remains just a draft and does not provide full quantum protection. It removes the option of spending Taproot via the key path, which exposes the public key on the network, addressing one type of long-term exposure risk. However, it is not a complete solution to quantum risks, and BIP-360 does not automatically transfer existing coins. The proposal also does not protect during the transaction broadcast window when the public key is visible until confirmation while the transaction is in the mempool.

The cryptographic schemes that Bitcoin currently uses – ECDSA and Schnorr – have very compact signatures. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends post-quantum hash- and lattice-based signature schemes, which are 38–123 times larger. If applied, the Bitcoin network would slow down, and throughput would drop below 1 transaction per second. As a potentially viable alternative, the SHRINCS scheme with a minimum signature size of 548 bytes, which can grow to 4,619 bytes, has been proposed. Introduced in December 2025, it remains a promising research direction but has not yet reached cryptographic maturity. It has advantages and trade-offs: compact signatures, but with the issue of managing cryptographic state in each wallet.